


Poker Face

by IamShadow21



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Gift Fic, Inspired by Fanfiction, M/M, Missing Scene, Original Author Endorsed, Poker, Poker Nights, Short, Tribute Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-02
Updated: 2008-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 00:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1113111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry can't win.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poker Face

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aniwde](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=aniwde).
  * Inspired by [Translation of Light - Chapter 13](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/33516) by aniwde. 



> Happy Birthday Aniwde!
> 
> I hope you don't mind, but I was trying to think of a fic to write you, and I couldn't go past the scene you wrote in [Chapter 13](http://aniwde.livejournal.com/7040.html) of Translation of Light, where Ron, Harry, Remus and Tonks are sitting down to a friendly evening playing Five Card Brag. ~~I know some authors hate tribute fics, however, and if you don't like what I've done, let me know and I'll take it down immediately. I won't be offended in the slightest.~~
> 
>  ~~For other readers, as this was written as a _tribute_ fic, without prior author consent, it should NOT be taken as ToL canon.~~ Aniwde-approved ficlet!

Harry heaved a sigh, and tossed his useless cards down on the table. “Fold.”

Tonks sniggered, and even Remus smirked behind his neat fan of cards like a Victorian gentlewoman.

“Honestly, Harry,” Ron chuckled, “You really are bloody hopeless at cards.”

“Traitor,” Harry declared.

Ron laughed aloud. Harry stole a chocolate from Ron’s kitty, unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth.

“Oi!” Ron protested.

“Wonn it bak?” Harry asked thickly. Ron’s eyes flashed, he leaned in close and… 

Remus cleared his throat. “I fold,” he said, with a distinct undertone of _not at the table, children_. 

Ron quickly sat back and dropped his gaze to his cards, face burning. “Er… fold,” he muttered, then swore when Tonks showed her hand.

“Just keep that up, Harry,” she suggested brightly, adding the spoils to her already large hoard. “New hand.”

Tonks shuffled the cards expertly and dealt them. Harry tossed a chocolate from the tiny pile in front of him into the centre. If he hadn’t won a couple of hands earlier out of sheer dumb luck, he would have been bankrupt an hour ago. 

Ron tended to lose most often not because he had poor hands, but because someone else’s hand was marginally better. Rather than making huge wins or losses, his kitty was holding even, despite occasional sacrifices to his oral fixation. 

Remus’ kitty, though not huge, was nothing to be sneezed at. Most hands, he folded early, but the ones he played he tended to win easily.

Tonks, naturally, was playing all three of them into poverty, and was just as cheery no matter how good her hand was. The round went her way with ease.

It was Harry’s turn to deal next, and he made a mock-serious inspection of the cards before he shuffled it, much to the amusement of the others.

“You can’t jinx an Aleator deck, Harry,” Tonks chortled. 

Harry knew very well that he could easily jinx the cards to deal him nothing but tricks without blinking, but he wasn’t that stupid, or that Slytherin. He dealt, and yet again, looked down at a useless hand.

“You’re just too easy to read, mate,” Ron commented, with a teasing grin, before Harry had even whittled his cards down to three.

Harry glared at him, indignantly.

“You’re the same when you play chess,” Ron added. “I bluff you out of winning more times than you realise.”

“Am I?” he asked Tonks and Remus, genuinely curious.

“Auror here,” Tonks said. “I’d be pretty rubbish at interrogation if I couldn’t even read somebody hiding a poor hand of cards.”

“So, that’s a yes, then,” Harry grouched. “Remus?”

“I can smell fear,” Remus said, so quietly and so menacingly that for half a breath, all the others did was stare at him, before he burst into genuine peals of laughter at their expressions.

Harry thought the chocolate he sacrificed from his kitty to throw at Remus was worth the cost.


End file.
